EDITORS’ NOTE: This online version of the Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary is a work in progress. The manuscript, originally produced in the 1930s and ’40s, is currently being revised and expanded, and will be updated periodically. Comments, corrections, and suggestions are welcome; please send to eglossary@theosociety.org

For ease of searching, diacritical marks are omitted, with the exception of Hebrew and Sanskrit terms, where after the main head a current transliteration with accents is given.

Mp-Mz

Mritanda.See MARTANDA

Mu (Senzar) Destruction of temptation; a portion of the mystic word in Northern Buddhism (TG 217).

Mudra (Sanskrit) Mudrā A symbol of power over invisible evil influences, whether as a simple posture or a posture considered as a talisman. Applied to certain positions of the fingers practiced in devotion, meditation, or exoteric religious worship, thought by some to imitate ancient Sanskrit characters, and therefore to have magic efficacy and to have a particular esoteric significance. Used both in the Northern Buddhist Yogacharya school and by the Hindu Tantrikas, with both symbolic and practical meanings.

Mukhya (Sanskrit) Mukhya As an adjective, first or primary. In the Puranas, seven creations of Brahma are enumerated, the fourth being called Mukhya, or the fundamental formation, production, or emanation of perceptible beings and things — the evolution or emanation of the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. This creation is called primary (mukhya), and not secondary, because it relates to the primordial cosmic emanative activities. As such, although the fourth in certain enumerations, it is considered the first as productive of the rupa worlds below. The powers, prakritis, and vikaras beginning with these rupa worlds are alluded to as the secondary emanation.

Mukta (Sanskrit) Mukta [from the verbal root muc to set free, release] Freed; one who is liberated from sentient life, freed from matter and karma connected with the earthly plane; one who already has entered into the state of moksha, being thus a candidate for future freedom from flesh and matter, or life on this earth. See also JIVANMUKTA

Mukti.See MOKSHA

Mulaprakriti (Sanskrit) Mūlaprakṛti [from mūla root + prakṛti nature] Root-nature; undifferentiated cosmic substance in its highest form, the abstract substance or essence of what later through various differentiations become the prakritis, the various forms of matter, concrete or sublimate. It is precosmic root-substance, the root-principle of the world stuff and all in the world; that aspect of parabrahman or space which underlies all the ethereally or materially objective planes or space of universal nature. It is again unmanifested primordial stuff or substance, divine-spiritual, undifferentiated, and therefore indestructible, eternal, parentless, and abstractly the Mother — space itself, and the vehicle, lining, or alter ego of parabrahman. It is “the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic Matter. It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense. Root-nature is also the
source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter. It is the Soul, so to say, of the one infinite Spirit. The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti, and say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis of the Upadhi or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental or psychic. It is the source from which Akasa radiates” (SD 1:35).

Mulaprakriti along with parabrahman are the two aspects of the one universal principle which is unconditioned to any human conception, and similarly eternal. Parabrahman is unconditioned and undifferentiated reality, and mulaprakriti is its veil or inseparable vehicle. To the First Logos or cosmic ego emerging in parabrahman, “once this ego starts into existence as a conscious being having objective consciousness of its own, we shall have to see what the result of this objective consciousness will be with reference to the one absolute and unconditioned existence from which its starts into manifested existence. From its objective standpoint, Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulaprakriti. . . . Parabrahmam by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of cosmic matter” (N on BG 20-1). Mulaprakriti stands in the same relation to parabrahman as the Qabbalistic Life of Space does to ’Eyn Soph;
similarly on lower planes, it is what pradhana is to Brahman, or what prakriti is to Brahma.

Muluk-taoos, Muluk-taus (Arabic, Yezidi) The lord peacock; symbol of the principal deity worshiped by the Yezidis, who is regarded as accomplishing the work of creation under the command of the supreme Deity. Although looked upon as a fallen angel and the source of all evil, he is not named the Devil, but is the emblem of intellectual pride on the one hand, and of hundred-eyed cosmic intelligence or intellect on the other: referring to the equivalent Persian legend of the creation of the peacock by the Evil One. The hundred-eyed peacock, however, may also stand for initiation, wisdom, the bird of the gods and goddesses connected with secret learning (SD 2:514; TG 218).

The Shemitic Muluk is identical with the Hebrew melech (ruler or lord); also the Hebrew mal’ach (messenger, angel).

Mummy [from Persian mumiai pitch, asphalt] The custom of preserving the dead by an elaborate process of embalming, with attendant rites, practiced by the Egyptians and other ancient peoples such as the Incas in Peru.

Theosophical literature attributes the origin of this practice to the Atlanteans, the intent being to prevent the life-atoms which compose the human physical body from transmigrating through the lower kingdoms. The attempt, however, was unsuccessful, because a life-atom itself is the ensouling essence of an atom, which is destroyed neither by earth, air, water, nor fire, and pursues its own pathways both during human life and after death.

Mumukshutva (Sanskrit) Mumukṣutva [from the verbal root muc, mokṣ to free] To wish to be free; desire for liberation and final emancipation from the worlds of differentiation or manifestation.

Mundaka Upanishad or Mundakopanisad (Sanskrit) Muṇḍakopaniṣad [from muṇḍa shorn + upaniṣad] An Upanishad of the Atharva Veda, also called Atharvanopanishad, said to have taken its name from the hopeful idea that everyone who comprehends its sacred doctrine is shorn, i.e., liberated, from all error.

Mundane Egg.See HIRANYAGARBHA; WORLD EGG

Mundane Tree.See TREE; YGGDRASIL

Mundi Domini and Mundi Tenentes (Latin) Lords of the world, and keepers of the world; a name given by some of the Church Fathers to the Satanic Legions occupying the blue ether. These Fallen Angels are really in their higher classes the cosmocratores (world builders), hierarchies of subordinate creative powers; but as there was no philosophical place for them in the Christian theogony, they had perforce to be classified as powers of darkness.

Muni (Sanskrit) Muni [from the verbal root man to think] An ascetic, monk, devotee, hermit (especially one who has taken a vow of silence); a person who has attained union with his inner divinity by means of aspiration, so that filled with inspiration as he is, and guided by the inner spiritual monitor, he is said to attain more or less fully the status of an incarnate divinity on earth. With the Sanskrit expression hridayeshu sthitah (abiding in the hearts), the phrase has direct reference to the Silent Watcher of our planetary chain, who is in a sense the spiritual and mystical parent of the higher part of the human constitution.

In the plural, the celestial seven munis, a collective title given to the seven stars of Ursa Major, the Great Bear. Here is the reason the marharshis of this constellation play so important a part in archaic Hindu and theosophical esoteric teaching — the genuinely evolved muni is one who is a true mahatma, one who has evoked into relatively full activity all the seven parts of his constitution.

Muni, however, is frequently used in Hindu writings in a merely complimentary or reverential sense, just as mahatma is, so that not every individual called muni or mahatma is such in the theosophical sense.

Munin (Icelandic) [from muna to mind, call to mind, remember] In Norse mythology, one of Odin’s two ravens which fly daily over the battlefield earth (Vigridsslatten) and report back to Allfather Odin. The other is Hugin (mind). Both are needed for the consciousness to learn and retain what has been learned in order to build further on it. The same idea is conveyed in Greek mythology, where Mnemosyne (memory) is the mother of all the Muses (arts and sciences).

Murari (Sanskrit) Murāri [from Mura an asura + ari enemy] The enemy of Mura; Krishna slew Mura, a great asura, and hence received this title.

Murti (Sanskrit) Mūrti [from the verbal root mūrch to become solid, take shape] A shape, a manifestation, imbodiment, or personification. The Trimurti, the “three manifestations” of divinity, is the Triad of the Hindu pantheon.

Murtimat (Sanskrit) Mūrtimat [from the verbal root mūrch to become solid, take shape] Of the nature or characteristic of murti; hence, for example, possessing a substantial or personified form.

Music [from Greek mousike (techne) the art of the Muses] The music of the Greeks did not signify merely the harmony of sounds, but actually imbodied the idea of inner harmony of the spirit, the becoming at one with the spirit of the Muses, so that the soul responded in harmonic rhythm to the beat of universal harmony. Music with the Greeks, therefore, included, besides vocal and instrumental music, choral dancing, rhythmic motions, and various modes of harmony expressed in action, perhaps most particularly that part of education which we should now classify as a striving for harmony in life combined with aesthetic, in contrast with intellectual and physical branches of study and development. It was culture of the essential person, the ego or soul, whereas the other two divisions care for and supply the needs of the mind and of the body.

Music, considered as the essential harmony not only in cosmic but in human life, has fallen from that high estate to being little more than the harmony of sounds, cultivated piecemeal under a number of varieties: one may be an expert instrumentalist without having much harmony in one’s soul.

In this modern, limited sense music combines and appeals to the aesthetic and the mathematical. For, while we have the power to be enraptured by harmony and melody, we can also learn how these effects are related to numbers, ratios, vibrations, and all those physical facts studied in acoustics and the laws of modern musical harmony and counterpoint. When these two components of a full musical knowledge are sundered, both branches of study suffer.

Harmony and rhythm underlie the cosmos, as is expressed in the phrase, “the music of the spheres”; and number and proportion underlie the whole process of evolution. Apollo, uniting the attributes of the sun, bears in his hand a heptachord or seven-stringed lyre. The sacred number seven is characteristic of divisions of the octave, and we have the first six notes of the harmonic chord, to which may be added a seventh.

Music, in all its various branches is represented as having been taught to man by his divine and divine-human ancestors, such as Isis-Osiris, Thoth, Edris (in the Koran), etc. It is one of the elements of the power known as mantrikasakti. Music was represented as one of four divisions of mathematics, the others being arithmetic, astronomy, and geometry. The music of sound arouses in us a power which needs to be controlled, as it can carry us to heights from which we may fall. If regarded as a sensual indulgence, even though a refined one, its true import is not realized. If carried into our lives, so as to aid in harmonizing our relationships to other lives, then it is the unfolding influence of the real music of the spheres of cosmic harmony. For music is “the most divine and spiritual of arts” (ML 188).

Music of the Spheres An extremely archaic teaching repeated by Pythagoras, and therefore in the West commonly associated with his doctrine, for he taught that the world had been called forth out of Chaos by sound or harmony, and that the universe is constructed on harmonic proportions. He further taught that the planets were arranged in relation to each other and to the Sun in the progression of a musical scale; thus the distance of the Moon from the Earth was called a tone, from Moon to Mercury half a tone, Mercury to Venus half a tone, Venus to Sun one and a half tones, Sun to Mars a tone, Mars to Jupiter half a tone, Jupiter to Saturn half a tone, Saturn to the zodiac a tone — thus completing the seven tones of the scale or the diapason-harmony, as it is reported that Pythagoras reckoned — although the actual addition of the half-tones and tones includes only 6 1/2 tones. As Censorinus (De die natali 13) expressed it, “the intervals correspond to musical diastemes,
rendering various sounds, so perfectly consonant, that they produce the sweetest melody, which is inaudible to us, only by reason of the greatness of the sound, which our ears are incapable of receiving” (SD 1:433).

Theosophy teaches that every body, indeed every monad or life-atom, is in constant motion, and as it moves emits a sound, its own keynote, and that this sound is in musical harmony with nature’s all-inclusive harmonic symphonies. Furthermore, every particle of matter, every physical atom even, in its incessant movements produces a sound which is indeed a song, so that had we the power of spiritual hearing (genuine clairaudience), we would be able to hear this unimaginably grand symphony of sounds: we would hear the grass growing — as the ancient Welsh mystic has it; and the opening of a flower would itself be a marvelous natural orchestral performance.

Muspell, Muspellsheim, Muspellsheimr (Icelandic) Muspell, the Norse god of fire, equivalent to the Hindu Agni. From Muspellsheim (home of fire) sparks fell into Ginnungagap (the yawning void) and Niflheim (home of nebulae), creating vapor which became Ymir, the giant from whom the worlds were fashioned by the creative beneficent powers. From Muspellsheim will also come the destructive forces which will bring the end of life to our world at the final great battle called Ragnarok.

Mut, Mout (Egyptian) Mother; the second member of the triad of Thebean deities, generally known as the Lady of Thebes, and holding with Amen-Ra (Ammon-Ra) the principal position among the gods of the New Empire. Although mother of Khensu (or Khonsu — the third member of the triad) and wife of Amen-Ra, she is often called his mother. Her attributes are those of the world-mother, the inscriptions upon the ruins of her temple at Thebes address her as “Lady of Heaven, Queen of the Gods, she who giveth birth, but was herself not born.” Sometimes she is represented with androgynous aspects (with the head of a man and with the phallus). She is associated with Isis and Nekhebet, although more often made equivalent to Nut, goddess of the watery deep, mother of the gods, and of all that is. Mut also in many respects has the characteristics that were attributed to Hathor.

From these attributes of cosmic fecundity, Mut came to be associated on a smaller scale with the moon, the mother of earth and giver of material life. See also NEKHEBET

Mut.See MOT

Myalbadmyal ba (nyal-wa) (Tibetan) Northern Buddhist name for our earth, which they considered a hell for those whose karma it is to reincarnate on it for the purgation of suffering and experience. Exoterically, Myalba is usually translated and is looked upon as one of the hells. Equivalent to the Sanskrit naraka or avichi.

Mylitta.See MELITTA

Mystae.See MYSTES

Mystagogy [from Greek mystes an initiated person + agogos a conductor] Initiation into the Mysteries; also the teachings and practices of the Mysteries. The initiator was a mystagog.

Mystai.See MYSTES

Mysteries, The [from Greek mysteria Mysteries from mystes one initiated into the Mysteries from mueo to initiate from muo to close the eyes or lips] Applies chiefly to Greece, but once extended to Asiatic cults of religio-philosophical character, it acquired a wider range under the Romans, and is used in The Secret Doctrine in reference to equivalent institutions in any part of the world. The most celebrated in Greece were those of Eleusis pertaining to Demeter and Persephone, which gave rise to many branches and influenced schools of older foundation. Others were those of Samothrace, the Orphic Mysteries, and the Festivals devoted to Dionysos. Schools like that of Pythagoras diffused their influence, as did Academies such as that of Plato. The history of Greece furnishes notable examples of great men who had been initiated into such Mysteries. The Mysteries came into Greece from India and Egypt, and their origin goes back to Atlantean
times. They were in historic times, what remained of the means whereby man’s divine ancestors communicated truths concerning the mysteries of cosmos and of human nature and of the communion between divinity and man.

In times when sacred knowledge was whole and not divided into sacred and profane, the human body, not yet desecrated, was held as sacred as any other part of function of human nature; so that the teaching embraced medicine, hygiene, singing, dancing, the useful arts and crafts; and the teachers of religion, philosophy, science, and of crafts, the founders of cities, and great artists derived their powers from this source.

The Mysteries were divided into the Greater and Less, inner and outer, esoteric and partly exoteric; and, as the former were guarded by well-observed secrecy the sources of ordinary information are mostly based on the latter. The more recondite Mysteries could not, from their very nature, be publicly divulged; they were revelations, appreciable only by an awakened spiritual perception and incommunicable to anyone not thus awakened. The Greater Mysteries were successive initiations for prepared candidates. The Less consisted of symbolic and dramatic representations for the public, in which, among other things, the profound symbology of the Greek mythology was employed.

The elevating and unifying influence of these institutions was acknowledged by Greek and Roman authorities and is apparent from a study of Greek history. With the advance of a cycle of materialism, the Mysteries became degraded, especially in Asia Minor in Roman times; the symbolism was perverted and even made to palliate licentious practices. What little was left to abolish was formally abolished by Justinian, who closed the mystic and quasi-esoteric Neoplatonic School of Athens in 529.

In a recognition of the ancient Mysteries we find a clue to the meaning of the universal prevalence, among peoples fallen into a degenerate and falsely called primitive state of life, of strange rites and black magical practices. These are the very dregs and distortions of the ancient holy teachings; but even here unprejudiced inquirers find that, when sympathetically approached, the existence of secret cults which preserve at least remnants of some of the essential teachings of the ancient wisdom.

As formal institutions, the Mysteries had their earliest origin during the fourth root-race, Atlantis, after its fourth subrace. Indeed, the still more primitive roots of the Mysteries can be traced to a much earlier time, probably during the third subrace of the Atlanteans, when the rapid degeneration of mankind into the worship of matter had brought about the absolute need of segregating the nobler and finer spirits of the human race into groups or schools where they could, under the vows of inviolable secrecy, study the deeper mysteries of nature and their own oneness with the divine. From that time the Mysteries became with every subrace more and more secret and entrance into them became ever more difficult. After the fifth root-race came upon the scene, the Mysteries had become well established in all countries of the globe, and their rites and functions, both of the Greater and the Less, were conducted as functions of the State.

Even from the time of the incarnation of the manasaputras in the third root-race, there has been an unbroken line, stream, or succession of lofty spiritual teachers guarding the ancient god-wisdom received in primordial ages from the dhyanis; and the Mysteries, even in their heyday of splendor and in their most secret lines of work, were the outer side of clothing of this inner stream of inspiration and sublime teaching. The light has not yet died from off the earth, and the spiritual stream still exists and does its work in the world, although for ages it has been acting more secretly and esoterically than ever. However, the time is coming when the Mysteries will again be reestablished and will receive the common reverence and respect from mankind that in former ages they universally had.

Mysterium Magnum (Latin) The great mystery; used by Paracelsus and other alchemists to denote primordial undifferentiated matter, from which all the elements sprang, sometimes compared with Brahma, at others with aether the garment of akasa.

Mysteria Specialia [from mysteria mystery + specialia particular, specific] Particular mystery; used by European Medieval alchemico-mystical philosophers, such as Paracelsus. Mysterium is used by Paracelsus to denote the germinal state of a being, which is afterwards produced in the differentiated state; thus the seed is the mysterium of the future plant. Specialia implies that each organism pre-exists in its own special mysterium. Thus is indicated an intermediate state of differentiation, between the condition of undifferentiated chaos and that of separate and developed organisms.

Mystery-gods Several different groups of cosmogonic entities, among them the regents of the seven sacred planets, whose chief is the sun exoterically and the Second Logos esoterically; and in a limited sense, mystery-gods is used for two secret planets for which the sun and moon were used as substitutes. Also, in speaking of the dual nature of the Egyptian deities, the concealed or esoteric aspects of them are spoken of as mystery-gods. Again, the name is given to the kabiri or kabeiroi.

Mystery-names Names of cosmic and global potencies, which have both a secret meaning and an occult power depending on the sounds or letters used; the meaning is often disguised by transformation into their languages. The name Jaho, with its variants such as Jehovah or Jah, is a mystery-name which in the Greek Gnostics appears of Iao (the English j being originally a variation of the long i). Many Sanskrit words are of this nature; Subba Row, in his article on the zodiac, uses a literal and syllabic key in interpreting the names of the signs. Some words yield their meaning by gematria, the numerical value of the letters.

Mystery Schools Adopted in theosophical literature from Classical writings, to designate centers which were consecrated to the teaching of the truths of cosmic Being to those who were found fit and ready for their reception; and this body of teaching or instruction and training is imbodied in the ancient wisdom which is the heritage of humanity. This wisdom was originally given to mankind during the infancy of the human race by celestial teachers. “The mysteries of Heaven and Earth, revealed to the Third Race by their celestial teachers in the days of their purity, became a great focus of light, the rays from which became necessarily weakened as they were diffused and shed upon an uncongenial, because too material soil. With the masses they degenerated into Sorcery, taking later on the shape of exoteric religions, of idolatry full of superstitions, and man-, or hero-worship” (SD 2:281).

Despite this almost universal degeneration of the original wisdom into dogmatic religious or philosophical forms, the heart of the teaching has always been preserved on earth, and the guardians of this heart have from that immemorial age kept the ancient wisdom whole and undefiled. From this heart esoteric centers were during the ages instituted from time to time in different parts of the earth where the holy truths were taught by hierophants, to use the Greek expression. “Alone a handful of primitive men — in whom the spark of divine Wisdom burnt bright, and only strengthened in its intensity as it got dimmer and dimmer with every age in those who turned it to bad purposes — remained the elect custodians of the Mysteries revealed to mankind by the divine Teachers. There were those among them, who remained in their Kumaric condition from the beginning; and tradition whispers, what the secret teachings affirm, namely, that these Elect were the germ of a Hierarchy which never died since that
period” (ibid.).

Thus was formed the Great Brotherhood or Great White Lodge, which has remained on earth to this day in its secret retreat, known in Hindu legends as Sambhala. From time to time messengers are sent forth from this Brotherhood into the world, and these emissaries impart the holy doctrine of which they are the carriers to those who prove themselves ready, fit, and worthy to receive it. Such centers of esoteric training and communication have always been called the Mysteries, or Mystery schools; and the emissaries establish new centers or Mystery schools when and where it is found proper to do so. Every race and nation has had its teachers and their esoteric centers; the one fundamental doctrine of the heart was taught alike in them all, albeit after different manners, in different languages, and by different approaches, according to the psychological readiness and the needs of the people to whom these emissaries came. In later times, when these Mystery schools had to a greater or less degree lost the
original impress and inspiration of the first communication, they were called sacerdotal colleges, or even temple-colleges or in ancient Greece the Mysteries. Such esoteric centers, where the original and archaic doctrine is taught, exist even today.

Mystes (Greek) [from muo to close the mouth] Plural mystai. An initiate to the first degrees of the Mysteries; the next higher rank being that of the epoptes (seer); and the highest function being that of the hierophantes (teacher or communicator). With the Pythagoreans the neophyte or mystes guarded silence as to what he had learned, and was authorized and empowered to speak or teach only when his mouth had been opened because of attaining the rank of epoptes. This custom has been borrowed by Roman Catholic Cardinals along with the term Mystes: “A word or two may be said of the singular practice of closing and subsequently opening the mouth of a newly created cardinal. Like almost everything else connected with the subject, this form had once a real significance, but has become a mere meaningless formality. Some reasonable time was originally allowed to elapse before the pontiff in one consistory formally pronounced the mouth to be opened which he had declared to be closed in
a previous consistory. Now the form of opening is pronounced within a few minutes of the form of closing” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed., “Cardinal”).

Mystic Death An experience at a certain stage of initiation, where the candidate undergoes the experiences of virtual death, differing from actual death in that his body is prevented from dissolution so that he may resume it when the trial has been passed. Through its symbolic representation in the exoteric Mystery dramas, it has passed into the substance of religious creeds where it has been adapted to those formulas, as in the story or mythos of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is, among other things, a description of some of the experiences undergone by such a candidate.

Mysticism The doctrine that the nature of reality can be known by direct apprehension, by faculties above the senses, by intuition. “Mysticism demands a faculty above reason, by which the subject shall be placed in immediate and complete union with the object of his desire — a union in which the consciousness of self has disappeared, and in which therefore subject and object are one” (Encyclopedia Britannica, 9th ed. “Mysticism”). It overlaps in meaning such terms as the Neoplatonic ecstasis, and the theosophy of Iamblichus.

Myth, Mythology [from Greek mythos a secret word, secret speech] An occult tale or mystic legend; the modern use varies from an allegorical story to pure fiction. Myths are after all ancient history and are built on facts or on a substratum of fact, as has proved true in the case of Troy and Crete. A symbolic record of archaic truths, universally prevalent among mankind, as in such stories as that of the Ark, which are almost universally discoverable and identical not in detail but in essential underlying features among the most widely sundered peoples. Myths contain the universal keys which can be applied to anything, and preserve undying and essential truths, so that variations of external form are unimportant. Such truths, being preserved in the racial memory of mankind, can always be kept essentially true to standard; and thus this means of handing-on can correct itself.

Early races of mankind were taught directly by their divine instructors; and in later times, when this mode of teaching was no longer available, the instructions were committed to the racial memory in the guise of allegories: this is the origin of the world’s myths. The labors of Hercules, paralleled in the mythologies of some other lands, preserve an epitome of the history of evolution in twelve chapters; tales of heroes seeking to win damsels and having to slay dragons, preserve the drama of the soul in its quest for truth; and so on.